The Final Form || Jan-Krzysztof Duda vs Magnus Carlsen || Chess.com Open 2026 GRAND FINAL

Hello everyone and welcome to the grand final of the chess.com open 2026 where Magnus Carlsen and Janšištof Duda are battling it out for the grand prize of 250 000 dollars which is absolutely amazing for an online event and a lot of you have been saying that Magnus Carlsen is just crushing everyone playing on an ipad but as someone mentioned in the comments it appears to be not an ipad it is actually a surface so i don't know if that you know means something to anyone so getting back to the match Magnus defeated Janšištof Duda in the final and then Duda re-qualified for the grand final and then Duda defeated Magnus in the grand final and now this is the grand final reset so had Magnus won against Duda in the grand final then it's a victory right away but as Janšištof won now they're going to the grand final reset and we are going to show two games from that event first one is actually the first game from the grand final reset where Magnus Carlsen has the white pieces and is just a beautiful beautiful i would say a combo attacking slash positional masterpiece so okay knight to f3 by Magnus we have knight to f6 by Janšištof and pawn to c4 we have the the english opening pawn to c5 and knight to c3 and we go into some asymmetrical english waters e3 e6 pawn to d4 pawn to d5 and now pawn to a3 and believe it or not the top move here is pawn to a6 as is the most played move in the position but the top engine recommendation is what Janšištof goes for and that is d captures on c4 we have bishop captures and now pawn to a6 followed by bishop to d3 now this is very rare but it has been played before even in classical chess and even in top level of competition now Dean Gliren defeated Hikaru Nakamura in the 2022 FIDE candidates tournament specifically with this line and then Magnus Carlsen repeated it a year after that in 2023 he played it in Tata Steel against Pragnananda but that game ended in a draw so we have c captures on d4 e captures and bishop to e7 castles kingside and pawn to b5 so pretty standard stuff we have sorry bishop to g5 bishop to b7 and the rook to e1 we have castles kingside and there is a game where queen to d2 was played Viktor Lazničko played it against Boris Gelfand in the first edition of Prague Masters back in 2019 but here and there are a couple more games where this position has been reached but Magnus plays bishop to c2 and it is now as of move 13 that we have a completely new game and you know what Magnus wants he wants to play a queen d3 capture on f6 and deliver checkmate on h7 so he's not hoping that that will actually happen but you know he is planning towards that so pawn to b4 by Jan Šištof and again you could go for some rook c8 maybe knight a7 and then shift the knight over to b5 but he goes for b4 first and now Magnus doesn't recapture he goes queen b3 and it's of course again clear what Magnus wants to do but it's interesting that that's maybe even the best you can do for example you capture on c3 you allow this that threatens checkmate now you play g6 and after captures you play b captures on c3 and this is actually a pretty nice position for black. Black would have to give up the light square bishop because if this knight starts dominating the dark squares then it's going to be just very hard to defend but it can be done. Jan Šištof says nope I'm not doing any of that I'm just going to play g6 and your attack is simply non-existent. Okay Magnus goes knight a4 we have b captures on a3 b captures and now knight to d5 just offering some trades here Magnus says no thank you bishop to h8 and again Jan Šištof does have some problems on the dark squares here we have rook to e8 knight to c5 and while you can eliminate that knight allowing only Magnus to have a dark square bishop where you put all of your pawns on light squares in front of your king is a recipe for a very quick disaster. So after knight c5 we have queen to c7 rook a to c1 nicely aligning the rook with the queen sorry rook a to c8 and bishop to a4 just putting a lot of pressure and everything is sort of pinned and not easy for Jan Šištof to even make a move he plays rook e to d8 and now pawn to h4 by Magnus to which it's again very hard to say what you can do maybe bishop to f8 it's not a good move but maybe practically it can be played Jan Šištof played knight to b6 and here Magnus just retreated with bishop to b3 but such a beautiful hidden combination lurks here that I would you know rob you of one of the great pleasures in life if I didn't ask you to pause the video here and solve this one. So there's only one way to do it well there are two ways but they're basically the same way how do you win this game for white while I give you a couple of seconds. Yes it's the incredible knight captures on e6 and it's hard to imagine why Magnus would miss such a move with so much time on the clock probably I imagine is that after f captures and the bishop captures now you have to recapture with the bishop he maybe even saw rook captures on e6 probably did but then he just realized okay the queen can move and okay that's pretty much it there's nothing here but there's but still there's d5 d5 is also winning but also rook captures on g6 this is a scary move that wins and now you can't really recapture you're getting checkmated and if you move the king then look at this bishop g7 king g8 bishop b5 check king f7 whatever queen to f5 with check king d8 and now just a nice checkmate so very very I mean it's not that there's some sort of a subtle move that you have to find it's just you know cold heart calculation and very very strange that Magnus would miss this but he played bishop to b3 and he even invested some time in this but okay knight to d5 and now he plays pawn to h5 again I will show you can win with knight captures on e6 but here it's a little bit different because after captures and captures black can play something like bishop to f8 now look at this bishop captures king captures and now knight g5 and there is no move that black can make everything is hanging the most obvious and there's just no way you can avoid that whatever you move the queen for example can move but then you lose the h7 pawn and again you get checkmated and if you go for something like rook d7 it seems like it holds everything but all of a sudden rook e captures on c6 and now there's again no move bishop captures knight e6 check picks up the queen so I mean this is just a very scary move that was missed twice by Magnus but okay h5 his position is still phenomenal so you know he can play like this as well bishop captures on c5 we have rook captures on c5 and queen to d6 we have bishop captures on d5 e captures and queen to e3 again trying to dominate those dark squares we have pawn to f6 by young shishtov and now rook to b1 and this is just I mean it seems like there are a lot of pieces in Duda's camp but they're really just not doing well that much we have bishop to e8 rook to b6 by Magnus and here with rook to e8 you can still maybe sort of fight but he played rook to b8 and here Magnus just played bishop to f4 and he was in this position unmoved 29 that young shishtov Duda resigned the game as there is nothing more to be done here point being that there are even some crazy lines like if the queen moves you can even just trade with the rook and then after knight captures you can go rook c7 for example queen e8 rook to e7 queen to c6 now you go knight to h4 and again not much for for black to do here if knight to d7 you can even play rook to g7 with check such a scary position king captures queen goes to e7 now connects with the rook here king h8 you're going to capture with check king g7 queen e7 check king g8 and now h6 and there is no defense against checkmate on g7 so maybe there were a couple of ways where Magnus could have won faster but you know he has the job done and fairly convincingly that brings us to game number two where now Duda has the white pieces and he has to win on demand to force further tie breaks and what can he go for if you know something that Magnus cannot just easily draw he opts for pawn to e4 and we have pawn to e5 knight f3 knight to c6 and now allowing Magnus to go for some sort of a berlin doesn't really seem like the way to go the scotch may be a bit too dangerous uh he opts for the for the italian game bishop to c4 and bishop to c5 Magnus gives him the opportunity to go for the ultimate move but young shishtov declines he plays pawn to d3 and okay the gioco pianissimo is on the board we have knight f6 bishop to g5 the main line of the gioco pianissimo h6 we have bishop to h4 and now bishop d7 this is a bit of a rare move but Magnus now only needing a draw is very okay with just going bishop d7 maybe moving the knight trading off the bishop so he wants to let young shishtov think and just try and find ways to push and maybe so pawn to a4 sorry not pawn to a4 right away first he played bishop to g3 and then after d6 pawn to a4 and we have pawn to a5 Magnus of course fights against that b4 pawn push and maybe prepares to bring the knight over to b4 so c3 we have castles kingside and now there are a couple games where castles was played here we have knight b to d2 and it is now as of move 10 that we have a completely new game so let's see if young shishtov can find a way to do something about this position Magnus just further improves his position g6 although i would be a little bit scared of this it doesn't seem like there's a way for you to actually go after that g6 pawn so pawn to h3 we have knight h7 and castles kingside we have king to g7 Magnus now unpins from this diagonal d4 we have bishop to f6 and now queen to c2 we have knight g5 Magnus just offers a trade rook a to d1 and now queen to e7 we have king to h1 and bishop to d7 just nicely developing we have rook f to e1 and rook a to d8 we have knight h2 Magnus now with ideas of knight g4 maybe he even brings it to f1 and then to e3 d5 who knows all depends on what yeah sorry do that all depends on what Magnus plays with e captures on d4 and now before recapturing pawn to f4 and here Magnus is on a bit of a slippery slope he goes 97 and now knight to g4 knight b to f3 also a way to look for the initiative knight g4 we have b captures on c3 b captures and bishop to h4 looks for a trade and now young shishtov strikes with pawn to f5 and is a very very scary position where it seems like you cannot capture on g3 due to f6 check but interestingly that's the top move recommended by the engine to sacrifice the queen like this f6 captures captures and now even king captures on f6 and then black has quite a lot for the for the sacrificed queen but Magnus doesn't need to win this game he's very happy with knight c5 and now uh he runs into a bit of a problem here but young shishtov misses the the initiative he goes bishop captures on h4 now the tricky move here was knight f3 point being that now it seems like okay there's the free bishop but after captures on g3 the key move you have to find is not f6 check but actually queen to d2 go after the h6 pawn and only after black stops this now you play f6 check queen captures knight captures and now after king captures e5 with check but yeah i mean i'm showing it to you because uh you know i want you to know that it was there but chances of anyone actually finding this over the board are very very slim captures captures and rook to e2 and this is not a very very promising position for white but yeah if you don't see that then you're just not finding it bishop captures on h4 we have queen captures and knight f3 so he does find knight to f3 only he doesn't start with it queen h5 and now f6 with check which still looks uh you know a little bit dangerous but magnus just goes king h7 and now rook to d5 attacks the queen pawn to g5 the queen is safe here pawn to e5 opens up a check and now magnus should really play queen g6 and trade queens but he goes king to h8 and now he runs into some more problems but only if young shishtov finds it and it's not easy to figure out uh how to play this position uh interestingly what would you play here you know what do you it's so so unnatural uh to think like this but uh you know if you can find moves like these then uh sky's the limit for you i i guess but um the move here is king g1 of course young shishtov two minutes on the clock did not find it but the point is that after you trade here it seems like very good for black but then bishop a2 look at this scary move really scary bishop coming to b1 and it doesn't seem like black can do anything about this checkmate if queen captures on a4 you can even go queen to f5 and black is just terrible here if you for example if you capture on a2 knight g5 h captures rookie three there's no stopping checkmate so it was there but very very hard to find and uh if you want to bring down like this uh knight f to h2 was played uh but this no longer works now magnus just goes bishop d6 attacks the rook and rook captures on c5 even this because this is an attacking game so uh keeping that rook that doesn't really do anything doesn't make much sense we have captures captures f captures and now queen to b3 goes after d6 pawn rook d to e8 and it's still very much playable but again you you have to find it and uh rook to d5 would have been better here because you actually have a threat of going after the pawn but magnus played rook d t8 and now he just allows young shishtov to capture the b7 pawn and this is i find this to be absolutely incredible what just happens here look at these pawns young shishtov will now win all four of these pawns in a row like it will be consecutive four pawn grabs without his position improving at all i mean it's incredible that such a position can exist he goes queen captures on b7 okay knight d8 magnus attacks the queen he captures the pawn on c7 knight f7 and now he captures the pawn on a5 look at this queen g6 by magnus and he captures the pawn on c5 as well and he creates the past a pawn and the past t pawn but magnus's position has actually improved we do the capturing those four pawns now magnus plays h5 we have knight f2 and rook to c8 attacks the queen queen e3 okay defends the pawn and rook to c4 puts pressure on the a4 pawn we have knight to e4 puts pressure on the g5 pawn and g4 we have captures captures and now pawn to a5 young shishtov starts pushing the pawn rook to a8 magnus puts the rook in front of the pawn maybe behind it would be a little bit better but okay now the way to actually find some counterplay here is to go knight d6 this is the way to do it but young shishtov goes queen to e2 and now it's simply too easy for magnus to to just nullify anything young shishtov had knight captures on e5 we have knight d6 attacking the rook rook c5 also defending the knight here knight to b7 attacking the rook and here magnus is actually winning but uh he misses the idea he just played rook uh rook captures on a5 and he gave up the exchange but uh do you see the win here it's such a funny move such a funny move try and find it uh believe it or not it's g3 but you're not checkmating white you're actually winning the knight on b7 point is that now if knight captures on c5 you have queen h6 and you cannot prevent checkmate so obviously white will have to do something about this and if you go knight f1 then look at this queen h7 check picks up the knight on b7 absolutely incredible that you can i mean that magnus can miss something like this but yeah playing so many games uh with uh you know in such a rapid format will make you miss tactics and you know if you have a general idea of what you want to achieve spending time might cost you the cost of the game afterwards if there's actually no win but okay his spidey sense just wasn't tingling we have rook c captures on a5 knight captures on a5 and the rook captures on a5 and now the position is again fairly equal we have queen to f2 g3 now attacking the queen queen to b6 attacking the rook and now queen h6 magnus threatens mate but queen to d8 with check we have king h7 queen to e7 with check king to h8 and queen to e8 with check now yan shishtov has a repetition here but repetition means that magnus wins the match so king to h7 with queen e7 check king to h8 and now he has to continue the game otherwise magnus wins the match queen g7 check okay queen captures pawn captures king captures and now knight f1 he goes after the pawn and now it's equal material with yan shishtov having only 12 seconds on the clock so he has to pre-move every move and they actually played it out quite well some 15 more moves were played knight b3 rook captures on e6 yan shishtov even won a pawn rook a1 pinning the knight king g1 defending rook c1 rook e3 rook captures on c3 and rook captures on g3 with check so now yan shishtov is up a pawn and he's ready to push it he just doesn't have time to push it because he has nine seconds on the clock king f6 h2 we have king to e5 rook e3 check king d4 rook f3 rook to c8 magnus also has to pre-move because if he only allows yan shishtov to pre-move he will think on magnus's time knight g3 knight e5 knight e2 check king to e4 rook h3 knight g4 check king g3 and knight to f6 we have rook to h4 check king to e3 knight g1 knight e4 check king h3 rook to c1 king to h2 and knight to d2 we have rook to h3 check king f2 rook to f3 check and king d1 and he was in this position on move 70 that magnus carlson won as yan shishtov simply lost on time and there's not much you can try here i mean you can always run into something like king f2 and rook e2 check but of course if you go king d1 then there's nothing you can do i mean king h3 you can try pushing your pawn but there's already there was a fork here so you have to play king h3 and now magnus would just go back and it would be it's impossible to win this i mean not impossible and maybe against magnus it would be impossible but yeah yan shishtov simply did not have time so impressive stuff from yan shishtov winning the losers bracket then qualifying for the grand final beating magnus carlson but then the final resets itself and then magnus just you know said all right now you are ready to face my final he powered up and that was enough you know to easily win the match so magnus carlson wins first place in the first chess.com open tournament played in 2026 he wins $250,000 played on microsoft surface as you know as i understand so very nicely done and i don't know some of you enjoy these quicker formats some of you are you know horrified that we have to look at magnus missing all of these tactics when he's supposedly the greatest player ever but fear not there's enough of this and there's enough of other stuff so uh in in a few days the tepe sigman tournament starts and we will have some incredible clashes like the one i've already mentioned yaos kander domush will be facing magnus carlson in classical chess and we will have so many other great encounters so you know it's not that all of the tournaments are like this some of them are still about what's what's classy in chess and what's what's permanent so there will be that as well so i really hope you enjoyed it i would like to thank robert taratun steven connell igor osmolovsky christian medical and the voice of reason consulting for a contribution to my channel thank you a lot i really appreciate it as usual you can check to my previous videos here thank you for watching and i will see you soon continuing to check up on your wonderful suggestions and whatever else happens in the chess world i thank you all i will see you soon and have an excellent rest of your day and i've already created the lotus chess may arena so uh do check it out and if you still haven't download lotus chess it is the best way to learn chess and you will just get better instantly it's it's guaranteed see you soon